Gaming: 4 must-play classic DOS games

It's time to go retro, and here's a guide to the best of the best DOS games for the true gamer

Before Windows there was DOS. In fact, for a brief period of time to access Windows, you needed to load up DOS. Gaming also wasn’t as simple as it is today. Copying a game from a friend meant you needed to whip out at least two floppy disks and the game had to be zipped and split up, so you could take it home to your PC. If you don’t remember this era of computing, chances are you have missed some of the best games to have come out from that decade. Fear not, this little primer will not only link you to the best sites to play these games on your browser, phone or PC, but will also list a bunch of games that you really need to play to achieve true gamer status.

Mortal Kombat 2The second in the series of MK games (FYI, Mortal Kombat is also available for free) features tons of gore, a whole lot of cool fatalities and a decent roster of characters. Though most of the game’s bloodiest scenes would be laughed at today, in its day it was either banned or heavily censored in several countries. MK has spawned a whole franchise that is going strong even today. If you are a fan of Mortal Kombat X, you may want to explore where it all began.

Must-play DOS games

Day of the TentaclePoint-and-click adventure games may not be a popular genre today, but in the 90s every other game was an adventure game. The point-and-click genre typically involves solving a bunch of puzzles to move forward in the game, unravelling a story in the process. None compare to the storyline and humour of Day of the Tentacle. You play as three teenagers each stuck in a different time period. Solving puzzles through in your time, to make sure the evil tentacle doesn’t conquer the world.

Dune 2000Dune 2000 was one of the best real-time strategy games of its time. The player can choose between three houses that are fighting amongst themselves to control the spice melange on the planet Arrakis (Dune). This game used an engine similar to Command and Conquer: Red Alert, allowing the player to control multiple units at a time. It’s a fun game and if you haven’t played an old school RTS, this is a great introduction to the genre.

ScreamerScreamer was released around the same time as the first The Need for Speed title. This game predated the days of 3D graphic cards, but managed to push the limit of what was possible with a Pentium 100 processor (that’s 100 megahertz) and a Super VGA card. With simple tracks and a selection of six cars based on real life cars, the game did well with the audiences as well as critics.

Simcity 2000The holy grail of city-building games, hot off the success of Simcity, Simcity 2000 really came into its own, letting users build large, complicated cities. The overhead view had now shifted to dimetric (still used in modern city building games), the land could have different elevations and underground layers were introduced for water pipes and subways. The game dynamics were reworked for a more enjoyable yet challenging game that can still hold its own today.

Where to find these games

http://dosgamezone.com/dosgamezone.com lists loads of games you might not find on other Web sites, though you can’t play them from the browser, you can easily track and download your favourite games.

http://www.abandonwaredos.com/www.abandonwaredos.com is another repository for game that are not supported anymore. You can search titles using genre, title and even year. The site also has a section on how you can run these games on modern computers.

http://dosgamer.com/Along with having a good collection of games, Dosgamer, also has a collection of reviews, cheats, walkthrough and music from our favourite DOS games. They even have a section which only lists games under 200Kb.

Play it on your phone aDosBox (Android)Lets you run a DOS emulator on your phone from where you can access and play the games you have downloaded

iDOS (iOS)Don’t worry, just because you happen to be on an Apple device you need not lose out on your favourite DOS games. iDOS does pretty much the same thing as aDosBox, unfortunately, this is a paid app.